Of Machines & Magics (15 page)

Ponderos nodded.

“Right as nine coppers in a row,” said Roli.

“And is that
very
right?”

“Certainly.”

“I’d prefer it if you looked less like me,” said Calistrope.

“Ah, yes. Differentiation.” The visage filled out a little, the axe-blade nose broadened, the complexion turned lighter, the hair—fairer. “This is better?”

“Thank you.”

“Um,” said Roli, his head to one side. “The clothes look as though they’re a part of him—it.”

“So they are,” replied the creature. “Perhaps…” Some sort of rearrangement occurred and the garments which had had the appearance of being painted on, seemed now to be made from a thin layer of colored clay. “It will get better.”

The creature looked at each of the others, silvery eyes shining brightly. “This is all most exciting. To
think
, to
reason
. To converse with others. It has never happened before.”

“Where have you come from?” asked Calistrope.

“I don’t know. I am just… here.”

“
What
are you, then?” Ponderos asked.

“I can’t answer that either,” it replied. “Oh, I know I have existed—there is a sense of time having passed. I woke before, a little time ago and then I stopped again. Not for long. I woke once more, I am here. It is all I know.”

“So—no name?” asked Roli.

“Name? Identification? None was needed before now.”

“Let us call you
Polymorph
,” Calistrope suggested. “Many shaped.”

Polymorph was happy with his new name. Indeed, he was happy with everything. They went on slowly enough for it to practice walking and very soon had mastered the art. The creature’s speech lost its hesitancy; even its clothes looked less and less artificial.

“How do you know how to speak?” asked Ponderos during one of the rare gaps in Polymorph’s chatter.

“I think it soaks into me from your minds. I am gaining a lot of information all the time, sometimes it makes no sense to me and I have to forget it; otherwise I would be overcome.”

“Calistrope, you have not told us what happened to you,” Ponderos complained.

“Well, that’s so,” he replied. “But meeting our new acquaintance here, has made my adventure seem a little inconsequential.”

“Nonsense, Calistrope. Polymorph will be as interested as we are,” Ponderos seemed curiously eager to hear about the other’s adventures.

“Indeed I will,” said their new friend.

“Well. It’s time we stopped for a rest anyway. I have just escaped with my life from a crash landing, a pause would do me good.”

The four of them found a sheltered spot to sit. Polymorph seemed to melt into the rocks slightly. When he shifted, the rock had crumbled to a powder; it seemed this was how the creature drew its sustenance. Calistrope talked about his experiences, explained the principles of flight which he had discovered and how the ground looked like an intricate map when viewed from so far above.

“Very interesting, my friend. I had no idea you were going to recount things in such detail.” There was a slight tone of remonstration in Ponderos’ voice.

“Ponderos, I have trod on tender toes, I can tell. I thought you were interested. Aha, I know. You have something to tell me too.”

“No, no. Nothing of any consequence at all. Shall we go on?”

“Ponderos. Tell me, before you burst.”

“Well, it was nothing, really. Roli and I encountered a small village back there. We were delayed, in fact. But for that, we would have been several leagues further along.”

Ponderos fell silent. Calistrope refused to use any more cajolery. Polymorph waited patiently. Roli looked from one to the other in frustration.”

“We found this village,” said Roli into the silence. “It was huddled under a great overhang at a bend in the river. The rock was like a tall column, still attached to the cliffs but jutting out like… like a…”

“Like a buttress, Roli,” Ponderos took up the thread again. “The houses, there were about twenty, were built from driftwood and water worn slates for roofs. We didn’t see the place at first, we found this bed of river oysters…” And Ponderos recounted their adventure.

“Look at these, Roli! Oysters! Now these are good eating—good enough to eat raw. Ponderos picked up a handful and with his knife prized one open, scooped out the meat and popped it in his mouth. He swallowed and quickly followed the first with two more. “Excellent. Try one.”

Roli turned the corners of his mouth downward. “They’re alive, Ponderos. Drop them in boiling water for a minute and I might try them then but not raw, not
alive
.”

“I tell you Roli, there’s nothing finer. Some black pepper, a dash of sour wine as well; truly a dish from the gods.”

“When they’re cooked. Let’s collect enough for a good meal and then eat.”

Ponderos shrugged and bent to help his companion. When they straightened up again, each with an armful of silver white shells, they found five or six men regarding them from the shore.

“You’d best put them back,” said one. “Then we needn’t add thievery to trespass.”

“Thievery! Collecting shellfish from the river? Come now, let’s be sensible.”

Three crossbows appeared as if by magic. Their silent argument was effective.

“Well, let’s be reasonable about this,” Ponderos bent and laid the oysters back in the water. “I mean how were we to know this was a, er, a farm? Is there a sign?”

“A crime isn’t cancelled by ignorance, young man. Come along now.” The spokesman waved the point of his crossbow to indicate they should come out of the river. “This way and we’ll see what First has to say.”

Ponderos and Roli were persuaded to walk along the shore until a few hundred paces further on they suddenly saw what had been there all the time: a small village built of driftwood. The ancient timber, bleached as grey as the weather-worn granite, was virtually invisible until the eye knew it was there. Doorways were built from rounded river stones and roofs laid with split slates from the river bed. Even the grey smoke from the grey chimney stacks was largely invisible against the valley wall.

The column halted in front of a particularly ancient house, so tumble-down that it seemed more like a heap of storm tossed branches than a dwelling.

“Ho there, First. We have a pair of filchers here for you to judge.”

Nothing happened for several seconds, then planks were pushed aside and a head appeared, it was almost bald on top with a straggly beard beneath. “What?” he asked. “What they been after?”

“Pilfering our best oysters. That’s what they’ve been after.”

“Oysters, eh?” First grinned a wide but gap-toothed grin, the teeth which were left were interesting shades of yellow and green. He climbed all the way out of his ramshackle home, a tall emaciated figure wrapped in course grey cloth and strode across into the space enclosed by the houses. “Filchers, eh? Tie their hands.”

“People!” He shouted. “Everyone. Young girls, go to where such things grow and gather onions and leeks, potatoes and sour cabbage and crisp water lettuce. Women, gather oysters. Men, go to the brew house and broach a barrel of sweet ale. Young boys, gather enough wood for a fire to burn half a day. Old women, bring back the great fish we set out today and take out its guts, stuff it with herbs. Old men, cover it in clay so we can bake it in the fire pit.”

“Well, whatever problems we caused seem to have been forgotten,” Ponderos said in a low voice. “The old man has put everyone in mood for celebration.”

“What do you think they’re celebrating?”

“Us, I’d say. A lot of primitive communities celebrate the arrival of strangers,” Ponderos sat down on a convenient stone. “Perhaps they’ll untie our hands now.”

One of the men who had brought them to the village noticed that Ponderos was sitting down. He came over and pulled the Mage up. “You do nothing First has not said to do. Do you hear me?”

Ponderos did not want to cause trouble. “Of course,” he stood up again. “Whatever er, First says.”

First stood at the foot of a tall pole, a long straight piece of driftwood at the top of which a crosspiece had been fastened. There was a small platform just below the crosspiece and on the platform was a huge fish with a great under slung jaw and a wide fan-shaped tail. Presumably this was the one First had mentioned. Three old women were manipulating ropes and lowering the fish to the ground. Now it was possible to judge the fish’s actual size—as long as a man and much rounder than even the fattest person.

“Second,” said First. “Take Fifth and Sixth, they are both good with crossbows, and Tenth too. Take our larceners and offer them to God.”

“Did I hear what I thought I heard?” asked Ponderos of Roli.

“Offer us to God?”

“That’s what I thought. I don’t like the sound of that.”

Ponderos began to wrestle with his bonds but too late. Three crossbows were aimed at them, they had a remarkable calming on Ponderos. They were marched to the base of the pole from which the big fish had been taken and there, their hands were untied.

“Climb,” Second told them.

“Up there?” Ponderos looked up to the top of the pole twenty ells above their heads.

“To the top.”

“What for?”

“Just climb.”

With the sharp tips of crossbow bolts making themselves felt, Ponderos, followed by Roli began to climb up the pole using notches which had been cut into each side. Well out of reach, Ponderos stopped and looked down.

“They’ve left us our swords and knives. That’s not so clever.” A crossbow bolt
thunked
into the pole below Roli’s feet.

“And what good are swords and knives up here? Climb before they do us injury with those crossbows.” Urged on by more bolts biting the wood just below them, Ponderos and Roli climbed all the way to the top.

“They have surprising skill with those things,” Ponderos said, kneeling on the platform among fish bones and feathers and stinking pieces of flesh. He looked over the edge, below them, preparations were going on apace for the party which First had ordained.

“What do you think it’s all about?” asked Roli.

“This is a guess,” Ponderos answered. “I think we have taken the fish’s place as an offering to their God. No doubt they feed their God the best and today, fish is only second best.”

“You mean
we’re
the God’s breakfast?”

“And loath to waste a really good meal, they are going to have a feast of baked fish.” Ponderos concluded.

“What sort of God likes fish or human beings served at the top of a pole?” Roli pressed. Ponderos didn’t answer. “I imagine we’ll find out anyway,” Roli continued.

They did, eventually. Several hours later, after the great fish had been successfully baked and cut into juicy pieces and garnished with savory potatoes and much beer had been drunk, the God came.

There was an almost inaudible sigh in the wind above Ponderos’ and Roli’s heads. Simultaneously, both looked up. The shape was unfamiliar yet archetypal, a predator out of the Earth’s youth which still spoke to some basal principal within. The two blades whispered free of their sheaths. The huge eagle cupped its wings, breaking its plunge with a thunderous double clap of trapped air. Two great clawed feet grasped the crosspiece, a large black eye moved from Ponderos to Roli, back to Ponderos. The hooked beak thrust forward, open, about to rend but Ponderos’ sword met the beak and fended it off.

The bird pulled back, unused to hostile offerings. Ponderos threatened it again but this time, the bird was ready, snapping at the milky glass blade and dislodging it from the mage’s fist. It bounced off the platform’s edge, Men and bird watched it fall, heard it clatter—long seconds later—on the stones below, among the crowd of revelers who were still now, every face turned skyward.

The God lifted its beaked head and looked again at the two humans. It reached forward toward Ponderos, its beak open. Roli’s sword caught it across the breast, opening a wound that bled rust red across the pale gold feathers. The eagle rocked back and lost its balance, it half fell, half leapt into the sky and spreading its wings to glide and then slowly pulling itself upward, upward, until it was lost to sight.

A vast groan came from the mass of villagers below.

“Thank you, Roli.”

Roli looked down at the villagers. “I think we shall be safer if we stay here awhile.” Ponderos agreed and they sat on the platform, back to back, until the God returned.

There wasn’t even a hint of sound to alert them this second time. One moment, they were alone, the next, the eagle was alighting on the cross piece and furling its wings. Two wounds on its breast and a gash across its neck were oozing thick blood.

Ponderos and Roli backed across the platform as far as they could; Roli took hold of his sword, Ponderos took out his knife. The eagle seemed content to sit there and watch them.

“Why doesn’t it do something?” asked Roli.

Ponderos watched it for some time. “I think it’s dead,” he said eventually. Look at its eyes.”

Slowly, Roli reached out and touched it with point of his sword; there was no reaction. He leaned forward and pushed with his hand; the eagle fell back, tumbling down, a sad bundle of blood stained feathers. Down below, there was hurried movement as people rushed to get out of the way of their falling God. When Ponderos turned round and looked down, the open space was empty.